


Solely Mine

by AquitaineQueen24



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: 'not the waking world of common sense', 'or with their ribs laid open and their heart torn out', 'something unnatural and uncanny that belonged to the world of night-ghasts', We don't know how Frankenstein makes Caliban, Whether from stitching dead bodies together or bringing someone back to life or what, but what if Caliban cam back to life and had no daemon?, to quote: a human being with no daemon was like someone without a face
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 19:37:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1790782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AquitaineQueen24/pseuds/AquitaineQueen24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Would Frankenstein have run away from him quite so readily, if there had at least been a blood soaked daemon bawling and thrashing about beside him in that terrible birthing bed?'</p><p>In which Caliban is brought into the world with no daemon. </p><p>He plans to rectify that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solely Mine

> "I am the most unhappy soul alive."
> 
> "I’ve heard it said the faeries  _have_  no souls.”
> 
> "Then do I ache, and bleed, and smart, elsewhere; still, call it  _soul_  for it is solely mine.”
> 
> [The Sandman: World’s End, Neil Gaiman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandman:_Worlds'_End)
> 
>  

Would Frankenstein have run away from him quite so readily, if there had at least been a blood soaked daemon bawling and thrashing about beside him in that terrible birthing bed?

He finds he cannot blame the man for fleeing in terror from a being that, apparently, possessed no soul. Not when men have set upon him and would have kicked him to death if they could, when women have shrunk from him, when the superstitious have made the sign of the cross or other such warding signs. Daemons themselves have hissed or spat at him, shrinking close to their humans as he passes; even Mr Brand’s parrot daemon is wary of him, no matter the kindness and humour of the man.

No. In his heart of hearts, a place where no daemon dwells, he does not blame Frankenstein for running.

He can, however, blame him for creating him. For constructing him in a fashion that leaves others convinced of his inhumanity, in a way that spat him out in a shower of blood and left him the loneliest being on earth. Has ever a creature been so utterly abandoned, so completely forsaken, that they are born without even a soul?

  _I am alive!_ he wants to shout, _I am human! I think as you do, feel as you do; I am a man! What of it, if there is no dog trotting at my side, no gull perched on my shoulder? I am real!_

But there is no weight in such thoughts. He cannot even convince himself of the evidence of a soul in his breast, rather than by his side or in his arms. He is a being of science, of metal and steam; how can he convince himself of the presence of his own soul if it’s not there, it’s not  ** _there._**

He has no hope of tenderness from any being, least of all himself. He is utterly incomplete, half-finished, bereft of the heart’s companion that Frankenstein’s science and witchery has denied him.

Well, if the good doctor was remiss in his construction of his first born, he shall make amends for that error.

In Frankenstein’s books, there is some mention of the panserbjørn, the armoured bears. There is reference to the belief that a bear’s armour is his soul, considered and rubbished in the same instance. What Frankenstein thought of such a belief he does not know, but he has latched onto the idea with such ferocity it sets a fire burning in the hollow his daemon would, should have filled.

A bear can make his soul. Then so shall he, or rather Frankenstein shall do it for him. He  _shall_  have a soul mate, a companion of his heart, a being with whom he can stand against the cruelty and injustice of the world. And his soul shall be female, and beautiful, and human, for he is human –

\- no, he is more than that. He and his kind shall inherit the earth. And his soul mate, his daemon, real and beautiful as he is not (as he cannot be) shall be beside him, her hand caressing his.

***

 

**Author's Note:**

> (Inspired by a prompt on the Penny Dreadful Kink Meme, although I don’t think this fills it since there aren't any existing relationships. This is preparation for something longer, I hope.
> 
> Also, I’ve always found it curious that one of the dead Masters of Jordan College apparently had a daemon shaped like a beautiful woman. Whether this was just early installment weirdness or whether it’s a fairly regular occurrence in Lyra’s world, I don’t know.)


End file.
